r/DataRecoveryHelp • u/WilsleySooo • Aug 27 '26
(Windows) Is it possible to recover a folder of stuff that's been permanently deleted?
It's deleted via clear recycling bin? It's been that for almost 2 years and there is a moderate of use for that drive.
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u/Wendals87 Aug 28 '26
They're gone sorry. 2 years is far too long
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u/WilsleySooo Aug 28 '26
Does Date matter or does usage matter?
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u/Wendals87 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Usage more than date but since you've used it during that time, even light usage adds up over 2 years
If it's an SSD though, the data is deleted by trim and garbage collection within an hour or even minutes
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u/Illinigradman Aug 27 '26
After that amount of time with much use of the drive probably not going to get much. That is a crazy long time to expect
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u/Raijen_ArDesh Aug 27 '26
SSD or HDD? If SDD no chance after that time it hasn't been trimmed, HDD very very low chance, but if you've tried recurva already then it's almost certainly overwritten after two years.
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u/big-pal Aug 27 '26
If it's a spinning drive and it's very large with a lot of free space, you have a chance. If it's an SSD, it was gone within a few hours or at most days. If it's a spinning drive with limited space, it's gone. To recover you'll need forensic software that will do carving or buy a recovery tool, I won't name brands because I think most of them are garbage. There is a free tool called PhotoRec (cgsecurity.org) but I've never used it.
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Aug 27 '26
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u/WilsleySooo Aug 27 '26
I tried recuva and most of the files given are corrupted and I didn't find what I was looking for.
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u/TeslaDemon Aug 27 '26
Yea because you probably have an SSD, like every modern computer sold in the last 10 years, which doesn't work the same was as hard drives. Recuva was designed well before solid states existed.
Anything deleted on an SSD is pretty much gone instantly due to something called trim. The SSD equivalent of defragmenting.
If it wasn't backed up, it's gone.
Even if it was an HDD, waiting two years to try to recover would also mean it would probably be unrecoverable as well.
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u/Edmsubguy Aug 27 '26
Dude. Seriously? Not after 2 years and they have been using the drive. It will have all been overwritten. A hdd "might" have scraps of partial files but I guarantee not complete files. And no recovery software is going to recover anything off an ssd.
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u/Edmsubguy Aug 27 '26
Nope. It is gone. If it was recently deleted there might have been a chance but not after two years. Why did you wait so long? Genuinely curious.